Big Mistake
by SilverWolf7
Summary: The Doctor takes rather drastic measures to try and get Rose to understand how bad a thing it was that she tried to save her father from a fixed death. Part of my Alternatives series.


The Alternatives fic for Father's Day. In which the Doctor is rather a bit mean, and Rose is stubborn and can't see the truth.

Big Mistake

It took him a while to realise that Rose hadn't held his hand to comfort him, or to reassure herself that he was there and alright, but because he had simply held out his hand and she liked to touch him as much as possible. As soon as they had entered the TARDIS, she had let go and wandered off to her room.

Usually this would bother him. He'd gotten used to her shadowing his every move, except for when she went off to sleep. This time though, he was both too angry at her for doing something he had specifically told her not to do before she had done it, and she was probably feeling a bit of grief from losing her dad. Again.

One thing he knew for sure, she still had no idea that what she did was so wrong.

He shouldn't have been so nice to her when they had been stuck in the church. He thought that guilt would be enough of a motivator to get her to stop, but it was becoming clear to him that that wasn't the case at all.

He had said it right the first time round in the small flat Pete and Jackie had shared with baby Rose. He had chosen another stupid ape.

He'd have to sit down and give her a good talking to, before things got way out of hand, but he had to cool down first, or all that would happen would be another repeat of what had happened in the flat. Not that he wasn't expecting that anyway, but he'd like to have some control over it beforehand.

He went to his own room and had a bit of a lie down, before he took a deep breath and decided that it was time. He wasn't feeling much better, and he had been unable to fall asleep like he had hoped, but he was a bit calmer both outward and inwards.

He was a man on a mission and Rose would not be getting out of this one lightly. If she refused to follow very important rules of time, he was going to drop her off home and never go back to see her ever again. No matter how much that would hurt him.

He didn't bother knocking on her door, knowing she'd pretend to sleep if he did. So, instead of finding her curled up in bed pretending, he caught her doing what she had been in the middle of. Which, of all the stupid things, was painting her toenails.

"Hey! Privacy! This is my room, remember."

He glared at her, and she glared back. Posturing. Well, see if he backed down this time. She was in his territory now, not the other way around. "This is my TARDIS. You're just borrowing a room inside her. We need to talk."

Rose rolled her eyes at him, but put her nail kit away and wiggled her now bright pink toenails. Why painting the toes was so important, he'd never know. It was on the same level as painting her face with junk every day in order to make her look 'prettier' to herself. Pointless.

"Haven't we already discussed this? Remember? You walked out of the flat in a snit. And told you you'd be back." A smug grin spread across her face, and it was all he could do right then to stop himself from slapping it off her face.

"Yeah, grin. Don't take this seriously, and you'll be as homebound as Adam is. I'll make sure of that."

The grin slipped off her face, to be replaced by a pout she used when she didn't get her own way. "And that won't work on me either. You still have no concept of what you just did, do you?"

She shrugged. "Doesn't matter now anyway, does it. All the damage was undone."

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "There are rules, you know. And one big one is not to change fixed points in personal timelines or history. While this wasn't a fixed point in time itself, it was a fixed point in your own personal time line. I told you to wait, but you didn't listen to me, and because of that you nearly destroyed everything. The only reason that things went back to normal was because your dad wasn't as selfish as you are."

She glared at him again. "Oh, selfish am I? For wanting to save my dad from death?"

"Yeah. I tried telling you this in the flat too, and once again you refused to listen. Once someone is dead in your own personal timeline there is no saving them. Your dad has, chronologically to you, been dead since you were a baby. Your personal timeline for him was fixed."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh? And what about meeting Charles Dickens then? We helped him and nothing bad happened."

The Doctor, starting to pace to lose some of the anger he felt welling within him shook his head. "You don't see the difference do you? To you, this is all just a game, isn't it? Tell you what, if you can't tell me how your dad and saving him is different from what we did when Charles Dickens was with us, I'll drop you off home and we will part never to see each other again."

Her face showed surprise at the ultimatum, before anger raged across her face. "You can't do that, it's not fair!"

He crossed his arms and smugly grinned at her. See how she likes it. "Oh, I can, and I did. You have until the next light cycle starts up in the TARDIS to give me an answer. If it's not good enough, the coordinates will be set to 20th century London, Powell Estate, year 2005. I'm sure your mum will be overjoyed to know you're back to stay and that you're all hers."

A stubborn lift to her chin told him that she would do anything to stay on board, but wasn't yet willing to think of why the two situations were different. "You're just trying to kick me out, there is no difference."

He shook his head. "Oh, there's a big difference, Rose. And you should know it by now. If you can't grasp that reality of time travel, you're just not equipped for this type of life. And I can't risk the universe like that. So, better start getting that stupid ape mind of yours ready for some heavy thinking."

She looked insulted at the stupid comment, and turned to face the wall, instead of him. He left her to it. If she couldn't tell him, she'd be gone.

The loneliness he'd felt since the Time War enveloped him then, and he wandered back to his room, once again hoping to get some sleep, but unable to do so. She had used his own loneliness against him once already. He refused to let her use it against him again. At least this time, she hadn't stated so out loud to him, with one of those smug grins of hers plastered on her face. No, she just refused to believe it. Well, she better.

He'll have to figure out what he'd like in his next companion. This grabbing people on a whim thing wasn't working anymore. So far he'd ended up with the most stupid genius to have ever lived, and Rose as companions. Maybe he'd hold a sort of test to see if they'd be good at this sort of life...

He sure wasn't going for someone who was as selfish as those two, that was for sure.

As the lights turned down as the TARDIS entered her night cycle (set to human, so that Rose got proper sleep. She was even worse without that) he managed to fall into a fitful and nightmare filled sleep, that had him waking up shortly after, knowing he wouldn't get back to sleep again.

Damn that War. And damn Rose for using it and the side affects against him like she had been doing.

He got up, marched into the console room and immediately got the coordinates ready for dropping her off, just in case.

He spent the rest of the night cycle in the library slowly reading through his collection of Dickens novels.

Sleep threatened to pull him under again by the time the lights flickered back up to full power and he sighed, knowing that he'd just have to wait a bit longer before getting a bit more rest that day. He shoved A Christmas Carol off his lap where it had been resting for the past half hour and rose to his feet, dragging himself slowly back into the console room, where he was sure he'd meet Rose soon.

When half an hour was up and she still hadn't made an appearance, he realised she wasn't going to get out of her room, so he made his way, faster this time, to her room and, like the day before, just barged right in. This time she was in the shower.

Must be the largest shower of mankind if she had been in there since the lights had come on. Silently, he asked the TARDIS if she was really in there, and getting the affirmative, sat on a chair by the desk and folded his arms again, hoping that his expression was angry, or at least neutral, instead of scared and lonely.

Rose walked out wrapped up in a big fluffy towel and shrieked when she noticed him in there. "What the hell are you doing here? Can't even have a shower without you barging in."

"You never showed up. I gave you a time frame Rose. If you're going to be staying on board, and the way things are going right now, that's a big if, you better learn when to be on time."

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "You still on about that? Thought you'd be over it by now."

He got up and glared down at her, grabbing her bare shoulders with a bit more force than intended. "Oh, believe me, this is more important than you wanting to stay on board. This is more important than me wanting _anyone_ on board with me. This is a life and death situation type thing, Rose. And I take those very seriously. So, I'll be extra nice and give you three guesses. Can't get it in those three, then you are gone."

She shooed him out so she could get dressed, and he allowed her that time, because he could tell she hadn't thought at all on the question the day before. When she exited her room, she was dressed in a shirt two sizes too big with the sleeves all coming undone and a pair of faded jeans. She was looking to her feet, her shoulders hunched up and her arms were folded, her hands fingering the loose threads of the sleeves of the shirt.

It was the perfect picture of stubborn teenage rebellion. He glared down at her, before putting a hand on her back and using a bit more force than he thought he would have to, led her out to the console room. He pushed her lightly into the chair, and stood over her, hoping that he was coming across as dominant, authoritative and not willing to take any crap from her.

"I'm waiting, Rose. Three guesses. Better not waste them."

She shrugged her shoulders, a half grin coming over her face as she stared up at him through mascara thickened eyelashes. "Dunno. Is it because he was famous?"

He almost smacked her for her stubbornness. "Nope. One guess down, two to go. And I said thinking Rose, that answer was one that required none whatsoever. You have a brain, use it."

She scrunched her nose up at him for that, and continued to look at her feet. After a few long minutes of waiting, in which she showed no signs at all that she was going to guess any longer, he sighed and shrugged. "Fine, you give me no choice. I'm starting the TARDIS now. Coordinates are already set."

As he said, he started the TARDIS up, and in a few seconds time, they were on their way to her home. There was a shocked, panicked look to Rose's eyes when she realised this was no joke. "Oh, sure, you are taking me home, Doctor. Bet we don't even end up at the Powell Estate. This is just a trick. You don't want me gone, you're too lonely to dump me like this."

"Thinking that is wrong, Rose. Stating it out loud to win an argument is also not a good quality in a person either. And this is the second time in as many days, Rose. Lonely I may be, but I _will _find someone else to travel with. Who else will you find who can take _you_ travelling through time and space?"

The TARDIS landed with a bit of a bump, but nothing as bad as normal. Rose automatically looked to the screen to show her what was outside in the immediate area. Her face fell, when she noticed it was, as the Doctor had said, the Powell Estate. Then the stubbornness came back, she folded her arms and lifted her chin in a challenge. "It's just a still!" she stated.

He leant against the console and gave her another smug grin of his own. "Oh, a still is it? Sure, the TARDIS takes stills, you know that. We'll just keep on watching shall we?"

He hadn't had to mention that last part. Mickey had come into view. He looked around for a bit, before racing towards the TARDIS. As the picture Mickey knocked on the door, the sound of the knock reverberated around the console room.

Rose looked up at him, this time the shock more real than before. "You really mean this, don't you?"

Rolling his eyes he nodded. "What gave you that idea? The fact that for the past two days I've been trying to tell you that, or Mickey knocking at the door, wanting to come in right now? The question wasn't that hard, Rose. You already know the answer."

She shook her head, got off the seat and made a run for the doors that led further into the TARDIS. To her surprise, she found them locked. He grinned at her again. "So! Question time, Rose. Better start with those two remaining guesses."

She sat back down, looking like she was about to start crying, but also looking like she was thinking. "Umm, is it because we didn't save him, he saved us?"

He sighed and shook his head. "Nope, one guess left, and time is running out."

A few tears slipped down her cheeks, and he rolled his eyes. He knew what real tears looked like, and this wasn't it. Crocodile tears. Real, but still faked. She was trying to guilt him into not letting her go.

"Tears aren't going to work on me either, Rose. One guess left. You have five minutes or I'm booting you out regardless."

She gaped at him, before closing her mouth with a click, and looking to the floor, wiping her eyes with her shredded sleeves. "What happens if I guess right?"

"Then we'll go back to your room and I am going to explain over and over until it sinks in _how_ it is different. And only until you get that, will we go anywhere. Got it? If you can't learn, then we'll end up here all over again, except there won't be any more chances. You'll just be out. Got it?"

She grimaced and nodded. This time the tears she begun to shed were real tears. She took three minutes, before she sniffed, wiped her face with her sleeve again and looked up at her with a new realisation in his eyes. "He wasn't going to die then, he still had time left..."

The tenseness in his shoulders disappeared, and he set the coordinates to take them back into the vortex, as he nodded. "Yeah, he still had a bit of time left. Not much, but a bit. If he had died with us that night, it wouldn't have mattered, his living through it, didn't matter. To him, it was just another part of his life. Your dad, Rose, was dead. To _you_ he was dead. You can't go making that big a change, or it rips holes in the fabric of time. If Dickens had died with us, time would have changed around him, but not by much. He didn't have much time left after all."

She nodded her head quietly, before bursting into tears. He let her back into the corridors of the TARDIS then, knowing that she had quite a bit of thinking to do. As she got up to go back to her room, he put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.

"Rose, you've got to understand. Between you and Adam, the mistake you made was worse, because you knew better. I can't tolerate that kind of thing on board. Don't expect me to go soft on you until you get that, right?"

She nodded again, eyes downcast, unable to talk as she was still crying too hard for words.

He nodded and let her go.

Tomorrow he'd start on his lessons of why it was a worse thing than what Adam had done. He just hoped at least a bit of it would sink in.

He went to his own bedroom, exhausted beyond what he was used to. He managed a few hours of good sleep this time around and was a lot more relaxed when he woke up.

At least he'd be ready for the next day.


End file.
